The Lord of the Wands
by MorganHopes
Summary: When a new student from New Zealand comes to Hogwarts, nine (or is it eight?) students set out on a dangerous journey to destroy a wand in an alley that is guarded by more than just pork...
1. Four is company

Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter. This goes for the rest of the chapters too, although I really don't see why I am even bothering with a disclaimer since this IS fanfiction.net and I'm in the Harry Potter fanfiction section and if I was claiming it as my own I would be rather stupid. But anyway, on with the show..  
  
A/N: This story starts off weird/pathetic, and I think it will get a LOT weirder as it continues (and more random) so read with care!  
  
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Harry and Ron were already sitting in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express when Hermione entered the carriage, rather flushed and looking slightly apprehensive.  
  
"Nobody's been in here looking for me, have they?" She asked, looking around, but found only the two of them sitting there.  
  
"Hermione, the school year hasn't even started yet. Now, we know you're a prefect, but you're not in THAT much demand." Ron teased. Harry thought that this was probably not the right way to go about getting her in a good mood, but he decided not to say anything.  
  
"You look worried. What's wrong?" Ron rather over-emphasized his concern, making the matter sound a little more dire than it really was.  
  
Hermione sighed. It wasn't anything big. Really. "It's just that I was meant to meet someone in front of the platform, and they didn't show up. Nothing much."  
  
Ron snorted. Typical Hermione; over-dramatising everything. Harry tactfully didn't point out that it had been Ron who acted like she was going into cardiac arrest when she looked a little stressed.  
  
"So, who is this, person you were waiting for, eh Hermione?" Said Ron, elbowing her in the side and giving her a wink.   
  
Hermione opened her mouth to say, but she never got to start her sentence, because at that moment a loud squeal came from the doorway.  
  
"Hermes!" Ron instantly looked out of the window, expecting his brother Percy's owl to be hovering there with a message, but instead the sound came from a petite blonde girl who ran to Hermione and engulfed her in a hug. Harry and Ron sat there, open-mouthed, as she and Hermione giggled at each other for several minutes. Harry noticed that she was probably the best of all of them at dressing in muggle-style. She had on a striped skirt in pastel pinks, a pink tee, and pink sunglasses were perched atop her glossy hair. It didn't look too bad to Harry, but when Ron whispered, "She looks like a stick of rock," he had to agree.  
  
When the giggles had finally subsided, the bouncy blonde approached Harry and Ron.  
  
"I'm Maria," she smiled, "and you must be Harry!" she gave him a gigantic hug, while Ron muttered to himself. Ron had always been secretly (and not-so-secretly) jealous of Harry's fame.  
  
"And Ron!" Maria gathered Ron up into an even bigger hug than she had Harry, and winked at Hermione over he shoulder. No time like the present to start mending a few hurt egos.  
  
As they all sat down again, Maria began to tell them the story of her, and Hermione's, childhood. It turned out they were both muggle-born, and had only found out they were witches when they turned 11. Before that, though, Maria's family had moved to New Zealand, leaving their only means of communication letters and email. Ron's face had distorted slightly at the mention of email, but since he hardly knew how to work a telephone, it was no use trying to explain.  
  
"So, I got shipped off to The Institute, and Hermes here got sent to Hogwarts. We only found out when we each got owls one morning explaining to the other what was going on. Talk about a coincidence!" Maria was talking animatedly, and at a rate of about a hundred words a minute. And Harry had thought Seamus talked fast! Her accent was weird too – harsh, and all her vowels sounded like u's. Harry hoped all New Zealander's didn't talk like that – what a country!  
  
The train slowed to a halt, and the group of friends hopped into a carriage to ride up to Hogwarts.  
  
"I've got only one question," said Ron, "why Hermes?"  
  
Maria and Hermione laughed, and Hermione tapped the side of her nose knowingly, an infuriating habit that she had obviously picked up from someone's grandmother.  
  
*  
  
"A few announcements before the sorting begins, I am afraid," spoke Dumbledore, as Harry, Ron and Hermione sat at the Gryffindor table, waiting for the sorting to hurry up so they could eat.  
  
"Some of you will notice, that we do not only have first years to be sorted tonight," he continued, and all heads turned to see the first years walk into the great hall, with Maria's shiny blonde head sticking up out of the middle. Some people started laughing, since she was about a head taller than even the tallest one of them, but she took it all in her stride and smiled as they approached the sorting hat.  
  
"We have an exchange student from Aotearoa Institute in New Zealand," said Dumbledore, "Miss Maria Drake, who will have the privilege of being sorted first this year."  
  
Maria stepped up to the stool to scattered applause and put the sorting hat on her head. A few seconds later, the hat shouted "GRYFFINDOR!" to the entire hall, and she was free to go and sit next to Hermione and Ron.  
  
Half an hour later, the sorting ceremony was finished, and the Gryffindor table had five giggling, nervous first years squished onto the end of it. Dumbledore clapped his hands, after the usual warnings (Don't go into the forest, one of the corridors in the school is off limits and beware of the moving staircases because they might just lead you to that corridor and find a three headed dog behind it. Well, something like that anyway), and the feast began.   
  
Ron, Hermione, Harry and Maria all stuffed themselves, then stuffed themselves again with dessert. Sleepily, Ron, Harry and Maria staggered up to Gryffindor Tower, leaving Hermione to lead the first years and tell them the password. As soon as their heads hit their pillows, they were far away in dreamland…  
  
*  
  
At breakfast the next morning, there was an announcement. In the middle of the teacher's table sat Cornelius Fudge, the minister of magic, in place of Dumbledore.   
  
"Good morning, boys and girls," Fudge attempted to silence the chatter as people filed in and out of the great hall. Breakfast was NOT the best time to do this, "I regret to announce that *ahem* Professor Dumbledore has had to leave the school for a while." This elicited a groan from the general student body.   
"But, never fear, for I am here in his place, and if you have any troubles, any at all, don't be scared to come to me with them."  
  
Ron and Harry laughed so hard into their porridge at this announcement that they almost splattered everyone around them with the gluggy mess.   
  
"So, what do we have first?" Asked Harry, changing the subject.  
  
"What do we have first every first day of school?" Answered Hermione.  
  
"Potions with the Slytherins then, I guess," Groaned Ron, as he dragged Harry back up to the tower to get their books. Maria and Hermione stayed a little longer at the table, before heading down to the dungeons for Potions. They got to class early, and grabbed a seat at the back, as far from Snape as possible. Hermione pointed out everyone as they walked in the door.  
  
"That's Pansy Parkinson, yeah over there with the blonde hair. And here comes Seamus Finnigan – you remember. Oh and Neville Longbottom of course, Hey Neville! Coming in now, that's Millicent Bulstrode," at this name Maria burst out in a fit of giggles.  
  
"You mean the girl with the CAT?" She giggled, referring to Hermione's not-so-nice incident with the polyjuice potion in her second year.  
  
"Shut up," she elbowed her friend in the stomach "I knew I should never have told you about that. Oh and here comes Malfoy," She was trying to change the subject, but it only half worked.  
  
"THAT'S Malfoy! Woah, well, I certainly understand why you 'hate' him Hermes," she noted sarcastically, "but honestly, he's quite hot." At that moment, Ron and Harry walked into the dungeon, and managed to catch the last three words of Maria's sentence. After that they followed her gaze, and their jaws simultaneously dropped to the ground.  
  
"Look Maria, I know you're new to Hogwarts and all, but can you be THAT blind? It's Malfoy!" Ron spat, not exactly caring that the whole class could hear what he was saying.  
  
"Ron, calm," Maria began to placate the fuming Ron, but decided against it, "I know you're jealous. Just because you like Malfoy…" she teased, watching the purple creep up his neck.  
  
"WHAT!?!" Shouted Ron, not knowing whether to laugh or punch the girl who was standing in front of him.  
  
"Yes yes, I know all about your little 'potion' to get closer to Malfoy in second year. Not the best of plans, but still…" She calmly turned to her books, while Ron was left staring at her, mouth still hanging open.  
"Come on Ron, it was just a joke," she said, pulling his arm so he would sit down before Snape came in.  
After the early-morning escapades, the day went rather well for Harry, Ron, Maria and Hermione, and by the end of the day three of them were lounging in armchairs by the fire. One good thing about being a sixth year was that you could bully first years into giving up their seats so easily. But, not like any of the three fine, upstanding sixth years to be found in these armchairs would have done that.  
  
Maria was on the other side of the common room, telling a story to some of the first years who were still up. They crowded around her, while she told them the exciting and adventurous tale of 'The girl who didn't live' and her untimely end. Harry was just wondering exactly what was so odd about the story, when Professor McGonagall entered the common room and came to a halt in front of the fire.  
  
"Mr. Fudge would like to see you in his office now, Miss Granger, Mr Potter, Mr Weasley," she looked over at Maria, "and you too Miss Drake. Come with me, now." She stalked out of the room, with the four teenagers in tow. What exactly was going on? Was there something sinister about Dumbledore's disappearance? Questions were running through their heads faster than cheetahs on speed as they wound through the corridors of Hogwarts behind the billowing black robes of Professor McGonagall. 


	2. The council of Fudge

After a long climb up a twisting flight of stairs, the students found themselves at the top of the Astronomy Tower, and the sight in front of them made them rub their eyes and blink.   
  
Around about half the circumference of the tower-top were chairs, some containing senior ministry members, and others containing students. Cornelius Fudge sat in a throne-like chair opposite the odd semi-circle of attendees to this strange meeting, and was at that moment looking pensive and wise. He had abandoned his usual pin-stripe suit and lime bowler hat for long, luxurious robes of orange and brown, and on his head he wore a finely crafted headband of gold and silver. The four students thought the whole scene was a little out of the ordinary, but stranger things than this had happened at Hogwarts, and they sat down in the empty chairs when motioned by Fudge. Harry noticed that Malfoy, Pansy, Ginny and Neville were also sitting down, looking around apprehensively.   
  
"Strangers from distant lands, friends of old," Began Fudge, standing up and spreading his arms out, obviously to welcome the strangers from distant lands who were his friends of old, thought Harry.  
"You have been summoned here to discuss the threat of he-who-must-not-be-named, you will unite or you will fail."  
  
Harry thought he was probably being a little melodramatic. I mean sure, Voldemort now had a body and he was out to wreak havoc on the world and destroy everything good, but that wasn't exactly enough to hold a council on the top of a tower on a very windy day. What about their hair? Harry couldn't speak for anyone else, but his hair was whipping all over the place, and he was sure that he would have some major knots to comb out when they got down from here.  
  
"In the land of middle-England, legend tells of the Dark Lord, and the wand that would give him the power to enslave the world," What was Fudge rambling about? Surely this wasn't the reason they were up here instead of down in the common room playing a nice game of cards? "Lost for over thirteen years, the wand has found its way into the hands of the most unlikely person imaginable. A house elf, by the name of Hobo Staggins. Bring forth the wand, Hobo."  
As Fudge spoke these words, a small creature, which Harry had not noticed before, hopped off his seat, and placed a long, dark wand on a pedestal in front of everyone. Some of the senior Ministry members gasped, and there were muffled whispers, as well as… laughing? Yes, someone was stifling a giggle. Harry looked at Hermione, who was looking at Maria next to her. Her giggles were now rather noticeable, and tears were leaking out of the corner of her eyes.  
  
"Yeah, nice one," she managed to get out, in between guffaws, "And it has written on it 'one wand to rule them all, one wand to find them, one wand to bring them all and in the darkness bind them'. Hah!" As she said this, Fudge and most of the other members of the council turned to look at her.  
  
"You know much of the law of the wands, young one," One of the elderly council members spoke solemnly, "Therefore you will guide the wand bearer to the end of their quest." He pointed a finger at Maria ominously.  
  
"Hold on, hold on," she put up her hands in defence 'Aha,' she thought, 'they're into role-playing. Well, not exactly my bag, but whatever floats your boat' she continued, "I'm not sure if you understand me. I have to lead some people on a quest that I don't even know how to complete. Fill me in a little please people."  
  
The council looked at each other and mumbled, then Fudge spoke once more. "Of course, of course. The wand must be destroyed. It was forged in a fire in Dodgy Alley, and only there can it be unmade. But Dodgy Alley is a terrible place, all slimy and damp, no dry wood, and it is rather hard to light a fire there. The only way that you can light wood in Dodgy Alley is to use the Amulet of Fire. You must collect the Amulet, and then make your way to Dodgy Alley. One of you, must bear this wand." Everyone looked around at each other, decidedly worried.  
  
"But the grimy black gates of Dodgy Alley are guarded by more than just pork." An elderly wizard wearing glow-in-the-dark armour stated morosely.  
  
"Who will take the ring?" Asked Fudge, ignoring the statement from glowing wizard.  
  
At once, arguments broke out among the members. Who was to take the ring? The head of the Muggle Interaction office thought that he should take the ring, and was busy trying to convince everyone that he could carry the wand in his feet, his hands having been replaced with oranges in an accident the month before. Another head of department thought that he should take it, and tried to grab it off the podium on which it stood, but was thrown away from the wand as soon as he tried to touch it.   
  
Harry's scar suddenly burnt with a searing pain, and his face screwed up (obviously, in pain). The other students were afraid of the yelling and screaming adults, and had all huddled in a corner together to protect themselves from the paperclips that were now being hurled with great force across the tower-top.  
  
Nobody noticed the small figure of Hobo Staggins dancing on the parapet, hopping up and down on one foot and then the other shouting, "I will take the wand, I will take the bloody wand!" in his high squeaky voice. A sudden gust of wind blew the house-elf, and he fell off of the tower, shouting all the way to the ground far below, "I will take the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!"  
  
Harry heard the cry from the house-elf as he fell, but he thought it was just the little voice in his head telling him what to do. 'Always the hero, aren't I?' he thought to himself, then stood up and faced the arguing wizards.   
  
"I will take the ring. Though, I have no idea what to do." He mumbled, and the crowd turned to look at him.  
  
"Right then," said Fudge, shaking Harry's hand warmly and placing the wand in it. "Better keep that safe for the moment, eh Harry." He clapped him jovially on the back, then went back to sitting in his chair and looking pensive.  
  
"A fellowship must protect this wand, and make sure Harry here doesn't try to use it. Since I really can't be bothered picking, I will just say that all Hogwarts students present must go, please report to the great hall at 9am sharp tomorrow morning to await further instructions. Thank you." And with that, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Maria, Malfoy, Ginny, Neville and Pansy were thrown out of the tower by an invisible force, and the door was slammed in their faces. When Harry tentatively opened the door a few seconds later, there was not a trace remaining that a secret council had just been held there to decide the fate of the world. Well, aside from the squashed house-elf on the ground below, but that wasn't exactly, ON the tower, and nobody could prove what had happened.  
  
The nine students made their way down the spiralling staircase and back to their respective beds, each wondering whether it was just a dream, and what would happen at 9am the next morning. All of them it is, except for Maria, who was marvelling at the depth and complexity of these wizarding role-plays. Obviously, when they did something, they did it well.  
  
*  
  
Harry awoke early the next morning, with Ron hurrying him to get out of bed.   
  
"Come on Harry, our first real quest! Quickly, get up or we'll never be down there before nine!" He pulled the sheets off of Harry, but quickly put them back on when he realised Harry slept naked.  
  
"Right then Harry, see you down in the Hall soon!" He called, backing out of the room as pink slowly spread up his neck and face.  
  
"Right…" muttered Harry, as he got out of bed, dressed, and walked down to the Great Hall to meet the others. Everyone else was already there, apart from Maria, who appeared about ten minutes later, hurriedly apologising.  
  
"Well, at last the fellowship is complete," spoke Fudge, back to his usual pinstriped cloak this morning, as he looked out over the faces of the teenagers. Surly expressions, yawns, grimaces, and a sneer greeted his large smile. "You have all been chosen for a reason. Do not forget that. Now, to find the Amulet of Fire, you must first pass through the Labyrinth it is kept in, and defeat the monster within. To find your way through the Labyrinth, and, more importantly, the way out again, you will need the help of it's maker. Daedalus. Now, he actually just lives inside the Dark Forest, but he hardly ever accepts visitors. Find a way to get into his house, and you will probably be able to make him tell you how to get through the Labyrinth. Follow Miss Granger, she knows where to go." With that, Cornelius Fudge swept his pinstriped cloak in front of him, tipped his lime green bowler hat to the crowd, and was gone.  
  
"Ok everyone, I think it's this way." Hermione waved a hand in the general direction of the Dark Forest and they obediently followed her down the steps of the entrance hall and across the Hogwarts grounds.  
  
"Don't you think it's funny," muttered Harry to Ron, "that nobody seems to disagree with going on a perilous quest to save the world. Even Malfoy, who you would think had sworn to destroy it, hasn't had a snide remark all morning."  
  
Ron shrugged his shoulders and walked on, and was chatting merrily with Pansy Parkinson before they reached the edge of the forest. Harry also shrugged, put his hands in his pockets, and walked with the group to the forest, where the trees were growing taller and more ominous, and the shadows were more apparent with every step.  
  
After about half an hour of weaving in between twisted trees and strange foliage, Hermione came to a halt and the group stopped behind her. She picked three round, bright blue berries off a bush to her left and threw them into a hole in the trunk of an oak tree a small way to her right.  
  
As soon as the last berry made its way skilfully into the hole, there was a rustling in the bushes in front of them and a centaur appeared, looming over them menacingly.  
  
"What business do you have here?" He said, trying to sound scary, although that wasn't quite possible as he looked a bit like a monkey and he looked awfully computer-generated.  
  
"What's this dodgy CGI character doing here?" Ron muttered in an undertone.  
  
"I dunno, I thought all the centaurs would have fled by now, but nooooo, we have to stand here and pretend they're real, AGAIN," Harry whispered back to Ron.  
  
"We want to see Daedalus, can you please tell him Hermione is here and it's very important?" Hermione addressed the centaur as though it was as usual as eating a roast on Sunday, and Harry wondered exactly how many times she had been here before.  
  
"Not nobody not no how," the centaur replied, pulling on green furry mittens and adjusting a tall green furry hat on his head.  
  
Harry thought quickly. There was no way this centaur was going to let them through, so they had to find another way in. Suddenly, a plan formed in his mind, it was his most brilliant yet! Harry whispered to the others, "Run to the left when I say go," then he picked up a rock, and threw it over and away to the right of the centaur. Sure enough, it began to lumber over to where the sound had come from, Harry said "Go!" and the entire group ran to the left and down a path that Harry was sure had not been there ten seconds ago. But never mind that, his marvellous plan had worked!  
  
Minutes later, Hermione was knocking on a great stone door and yelling "Diddy! It's me. Hermione! Let me iiiiiiiiiiiin!" It was actually quite annoying to hear her whine like that, Harry thought.  
  
The door opened, and the group filed into a dim room, which was lit only with a few flickering candles. A dark figure sat in a chair at the far end of the room, and they anxiously began to approach it.   
  
"No!" a voice croaked, "No closer! I'm over two bloody thousand years old, I don't want anybody seeing me!" They all stepped back a few paces, frightened by the strength of Daedalus' voice (because that was obviously who the person in the shadows was)  
  
"So, you have come to ask how to get into the Labyrinth, I assume? Well, here is a magic ball of string, it will help you find what you are looking for." Two more of the dodgy-CGI centaurs shepherded them out of the house, but got distracted half-way through leading them back down the path and walked off, chasing a butterfly.  
  
"That's what you get when you're part cloud, always away with the fairies," Ginny muttered.  
  
"Part cloud?" Ron said, "Wait, I really don't want to know do I?" He shook his head and looked away.  
  
"Exactly where is this 'Labyrinth' and how are we supposed to get to it?" drawled Malfoy, who had so far been silent.  
  
"Easy, Malfoy, we just have to get to it, tie a bit of this magic string to the entrance, and it will do the rest."  
  
"What about defeating the horror within, Granger? Did that little bit of information manage to slip your little mudblood mind?" He smirked, clearly impressed with his alliteration.  
  
"No, Malfoy, it hadn't, but I thought since we have Harry here, that'll be no problem. The only problem is actually getting to the Labyrinth." Hermione looked him defiantly in the eyes.  
  
"Where is it, Lands End?" He muttered sarcastically.  
  
"No, it's actually in John O'Groats, but Dodgy Alley is in Lands End so we have to go there after we go to the Labyrinth." Hermione was consulting a map that Neville had just produced from inside his robes.  
  
"Well then kiddies, we're off to see the Labyrinth, the wonderful Labyrinth of John O'Groats!" Pansy tried to sing as she skipped along the path, motioning for everyone to follow her (in the singing as well as the skipping).  
  
"I thought it would be a little easier if we didn't use our feet, Pansy," Hermione said pointedly, and pulled out her wand. She put Neville's map on the ground and pointed her wand at it, muttering something. The map began to grow and grow, until it was the size of a medium-sized bedroom and floating at waist-height off the ground.   
  
"A flying carpet!" Hermione gleefully proclaimed, and everyone climbed on board. Pansy looked mutinous, but stopped her humming and climbed on too.  
  
*  
  
Many hours later and quite a few miles north from whence they came, the Fellowship of the Wand was getting restless.  
  
"When are we gonna get there?" whined Pansy, looking like a child who had been told she couldn't have any more sweets.  
  
"I don't know, when ARE we going to get there, Hermione?" Ginny asked, looking up at her friend with her deep eyes, which were like pools of molten precious stones and sparkled in the light.  
  
"Not too long, not too long," muttered Hermione, looking down at the 'carpet', which still had the map on it and also had a blinking red light that mapped their course over Britain. "We're getting close now, just have to fly over…"   
  
At that moment, they were all distracted by a whooshing noise, and they looked up into the sky to see a blob in the sky, which was growing nearer and seemed to be heading right for them.  
  
"We're all gonna die! Fly you fools!" Shouted Neville, and tried to run away before Ginny pulled his collar, saving him from a terrible fate by not letting him jump off the edge of the flying carpet, which was flying high in the sky, above the clouds.  
  
"Stand back everyone!" Maria shouted, as she stood up, pulling a giant rod out from somewhere in her robes. "This is my magic rod, the dark fire will not detriment it. It is a meteor, driven by Oozera, I am going to fight it."  
  
With that, she stood up on the carpet proudly, and held her rod high. Everyone could now see that this was indeed a meteor, a giant ball of rock and dust with something long trailing behind it.  
  
"Begone devil! Halt! Stop!" Maria shouted, but the meteor did not stop. In fact, it drove right past the flying carpet and made a beeline for the ground, which it would surely hit within a minute or two. As it passed they could see that there was a small windscreen in the meteor, in which a manic-looking woman with dark, wild hair sat. As she passed them by in her meteor of doom, they caught a few words.  
  
"Whip 'em good, Hajile!" she shouted maniacally, and they saw that on top of the meteor sat a small man, maybe even a boy, with bright sea-green eyes. They could also see that the long thing trailing behind the meteor was not its tail, but in fact a whip, which this 'Hajile' held in his hand. Everyone let out a sigh as the meteor passed, for they had been sure they were going to die.   
  
Maria turned back to the group. "See, it was nothing to worry about, I told you." But, unbeknownst to her, as she said that, the end of the whip snaked up and around her ankle, pulling Maria down off the carpet and to a terrible death on the ground below. As she fell, Harry could hear her screaming and snorting, with her blonde hair whipping around her face like it was caught in a furious dust storm. Wait, thought Harry, snorting? 


	3. Attack of the Giant Spoons

The death of Maria shook the group up rather roughly, it is sad to say. Hermione tried to jump off the carpet and follow her friend, but Neville held her back with unusual strength, and after a while she stopped fighting and just leant on him, crying and sniffling rather pathetically. When she finally regained her senses, she turned to the map-carpet, and let out a small squeal.   
  
"We've gone!" She rubbed her eyes and looked again, but could see no blinking dot marking their path. Everyone looked all over the carpet, thinking that they may have just swerved off course rather drastically, but there was so sign of them anywhere on the map.  
  
"I've read about these." Pansy whispered. "Some places are so secret that they have magical force-fields around them, so that they can't be mapped. I read it in 'Hogwarts: A History'. Surely you knew that too. Hermione?" she said with a slight sneer.  
  
"Of course I did, Pansy, it's just that I was sort of in shock after losing my best friend to a meteor driven by a short man wielding a whip!" Hermione's 'shock' had worn off by now, and she was staring daggers at the pug-faced girl.   
  
"I can whip up a potion to find it, if you like." Interrupted Draco, as he pulled a small miniature cauldron out from inside his robes, along with a small set of basic potion ingredients and beakers that all fit inside one another.  
  
"You carry a mini potions set with you?" said Ron questioningly.  
  
"I'm not the best potions student at this school for nothing, Weasley. I practice, and I practice a lot. Anywhere and everywhere I can. Plus, you always have to be prepared." Draco managed to calmly reply, while removing stoppers and carefully measuring beetle eyes into the cauldron, which was simmering over a portable, waterproof blue flame.  
  
"He sounds like a bloody boy scout," muttered Ron to Harry, as they watched the blonde-haired Slytherin continue to measure ingredients.  
  
"No time for that now, I know the way there by road. All we have to do is find the motorway. Aha, there we are." Hermione suddenly guided the carpet into a steep dive, and the cauldron flew into the air, along with Draco's set of ingredients and beakers.   
  
"Hey, Granger, what's the big idea? That set cost serious money, and my father will NOT be pleased with you…" Draco yelled indignantly over the roaring in everyone's ears.  
  
"As far as I knew, he wasn't pleased with me at the moment, anyway." Hermione calmly replied, pulling the carpet up not a moment to soon, as they were in the middle of the motorway, and would have been splattered onto the ground like colouring onto a jawbreaker otherwise.  
  
"So you've been to this Labyrinth before, eh?" Harry leant over Hermione's shoulder, watching the cars speed past the carpet, which was floating at about tyre-height off the ground and moving at the speed limit, which was about forty miles per hour less than any of the other cars on the Scottish motorway.  
  
"Well, actually, I haven't been there as such, but I was surfing the Labyrinth website the other day, and it just so happened to have a map on how to get there. Did you know that there are over four hundred Labyrinths around the world? The first was built by Daedalus, but soon the Labyrinth franchise was bought out by Mythical Tours Ltd., and they built them all over Europe and the Middle-east, so that everyone can share a piece in the magic that is the myth!" She had started to babble, and Harry hadn't quite understood the last half of what she said.  
  
"Umm, Hermione, you didn't swallow the brochure for this place or anything, did you?" Ron asked, having leant over Harry's shoulder without him noticing.  
  
"No, I just found it rather interesting and I thought you might want to know, since we are going on a perilous quest which leads us right there, thank-you-very-much." She said haughtily, and returned to her 'driving'.  
  
"Hermione, don't you think the muggles are going to get a leeetle big suspicious of a flying carpet on a motorway, with eight kids dressed in robes sitting on top? Ginny was peering worriedly at the drivers of the cars around them, looking for surprise on their faces.]  
  
"Call yourself a kid if you want to, Weasley." Draco muttered, giving Ginny his trademark evil stare.   
  
"Don't worry, Gin, it's fine. I put a spell on the carpet so when they look at us, all they see is a couple of businesspeople in a car. Kind of the like the charms on Hogwarts that make it look like just a ruined castle to muggles." She gave Pansy an icy glare, trying to one-up her in the 'Hogwarts: A History' trivia contest. "All I have to do is try to stay on the ground, we don't want any more muggles to see a flying car now do we?" This time she glared reprovingly at Ron and Harry, reminding them of how they had flown a car to Hogwarts in their second year, and had been seen by a few muggles on their way, despite the car's invisibility booster.  
  
"It was only one or two of them, honestly." Ron pleaded with Hermione, but when he saw the playful look in her eyes, he melted like butter in a microwave. Ron had always had a thing for Hermione, Harry thought.  
  
"Oh no!" screamed Neville, as they whizzed past an exit.  
  
"Don't worry Neville, that wasn't our exit, it'll all be fine." Hermione comforted the boy.  
  
"No, that's not it," he whispered, and raised a finger to point at the giant sign ahead of them, "that is."   
  
Everyone turned to stare at the great sign, which told them it was only 3 miles until the next town, and also had some pictures underneath it.  
  
"There's a giant spoon and knife up ahead, as well as a giant bed!" Screamed Neville, and tried to make another run for it, but Ginny held him back. They could all clearly see what he was looking at now, the white pictures on the sign were of a giant spoon and knife, crossed, and a giant bed. The sight of it struck fear into the hearts of Ron, Ginny, Neville, and even Draco.  
  
"Neville, what would the muggles think if they saw you just walk out from a car into the middle of the motorway? Plus, you'd get squashed flat!" Ginny whispered to him, smoothing his hair down in an attempt to calm him.  
  
"Wouldn't be too bad if Longbottom got squashed flat though, would it?" Draco mused, but after receiving stony-faced glares from Harry and Ron, he added, "But yes, what would the muggles think?"  
  
Suddenly, Pansy let out a small whimper, and they turned around to see what was the matter. She had gone even whiter than usual, and her blonde hair was stuck to her face in straggly clumps with sweat. Ron edged away from her, but Ginny edged closer and hugged her, Neville lying forgotten on top of Wales.  
  
"It's, it's just the spoon. I've always hated spoons, I don't think I could face a GIANT one." She whimpered again. "W-when I was little, my dad used to punish me all the time. He would lock me in a cupboard, it was so small, I could hardly breathe. A-and then, if he thought I wasn't being punished enough, he would open the door, and he p-poked me, he poked me with a spoon!" Pansy broke down at this, and wrapped her arms around her legs, pulling them close into her body. She rocked back and forward, muttering under her breath. All Harry could hear was, "Spoons, so many spoons, not the spoons, please no more spoons, cupboard, spoons."  
  
Without warning, Draco suddenly put a hand on her shoulder in a comforting manner. "Don't worry, I feel the same about beds. You don't want to know the story," he gave a shudder, "but whatever happens, we will get through this. We can face the giant bed, spoon and knife together." He tried to smile, but it came out more like a wonky grimace.  
  
'At least he's trying.' Thought Harry.  
  
"I'm more scared of the giant knife, actually." Said Ron. "I mean, I know you two have had pretty traumatic childhoods, but a giant knife can still do a serious amount of damage." He grimaced at the thought of what a giant knife could do to a group of teenagers.  
  
"Well, that was a touching little bonding session Draco, but I have something to say. Since Harry and I are the only ones here who have actually lived in the muggle world, we know something you don't. That sign wasn't saying there was a giant spoon, knife and bed ahead, but a restaurant and a hotel/motel."  
  
With that, all the wizard-borns in the group let out a sigh of relief, and Hermione went back to navigating their way along the motorway. Harry moved closer to the front and sat behind her, watching the scenery whoosh past in a green and brown blur.  
  
More than just a few minutes later, Hermione pulled the carpet up outside a gigantic castle, which had been turned into a hotel and now sported neon lights and people dressed in suits of armour ready to take your bags to your room.  
  
"This is the Labyrinth?" Said Draco, with his trademark smirk plastered all over his pale and handsomely sculpted face. "Let me guess. The horror within that we have to defeat is the evil capitalist hotel owner who makes millions of pounds a year from dodgy deals pretending that the meat he buys from the school down the road is premium steak? This is going to be easier than I thought." He swaggered towards the hotel entrance, and was almost in the door before Hermione managed to grab his arm.  
  
"Wrong. The Labyrinth is actually underneath this castle, just like all the others. Call it a space-saving feature, if you will. We have to go around here." With that, she steered Draco forcefully around the castle to a small door in the side of the building, with the others in tow. The door was little more than a metre high, and was so encrusted with dirt and grime they could hardly pick out the words 'Daedalus' Great Labyrinth. Crete - John O'Groats – Paris.' Which were painted onto the door in a flowing script.  
  
Hermione pushed the door open, and walked in. "Come on, it's fine!" She called, but nobody was in a hurry to follow her.  
  
"Granger, I am NOT going in there. Even thought it looks wonderful and all, I have allergies, and there's probably a lot of dust in there that'll aggravate them." Draco began to cough weakly, and Neville gave him a 'what are you trying to pull?' look.  
  
"Even though the great arse Malfoy here is faking it, he does kind of have a point. Do you know how many spiders there probably are in there? Everyone knows spiders love dark, old, spooky places." Ron was looking apprehensively at the darkened doorway.  
  
"Never mind Ron, it's perfectly clean in here, no spiders. They just use it for storage." Hermione's voice wafted out from the darkness, and Harry clambered through the small hole first, with Ginny, Neville, Pansy, Draco, and Ron following him eventually.  
  
When they stepped through the door, the darkness enveloped them and the door swung shut with a thud.  
  
"What was that?" Pansy squeaked, and looked around fearfully, although nobody could actually see what she looked like in the darkness.   
  
"I shut the door, silly," came Hermione's voice, "can't have anyone see the open door and come find us, can we?" Then came some shuffling noises, and a few muttered words, and suddenly a big cloud of gold sparks rose up into the air and hovered over them, illuminating the room they were in.  
  
"I prefer that charm to 'lumos', don't you?" Said Hermione. "It'll follow us everywhere, and it's a lot more aesthetically pleasing, isn't it?" Sure enough, the sparkling golden cloud was pretty, but the rest of the group were busy taking in their surroundings.   
Near the doorway, piles of boxes had been stacked, and they were like a low wall around them. Hermione had cleared a gap between a few boxes, and they passed through it now to marvel at the place they were in.  
  
The room was circular and quite large. Frescoes and tiled patterns adorned the walls. Scenes of exotic locations and armies battling accosted them as they turned the full three hundred and sixty degrees to take in the luxurious wall decorations. In the centre there was a fountain, low to the ground with three cherubs holding urns, which had probably spouted water when the fountain was running. Small circular benches were placed at intervals around the wall, with what probably used to be potted plants in between them.   
  
On the far side of the room, Harry spotted a doorway, and went to investigate. It read 'Maintenance' in small, even letters, and Harry went to open it, but was distracted by a shout.  
  
"What the arse is going on here?" Yelled Draco, who was now standing next to the fountain. Part of the golden cloud was now hovering over his head, and it illuminated the fountain a lot more than it had before. They could now see that the statues were not the traditional pale white marble that one usually saw, but were painted in garish colours. They had orange skin, purple hair, yellow yes, and held bright blue urns.   
  
"Wonder what the painters were on when the painted this." Mumbled Ron, but he caught a glare from Hermione and Ginny and quickly shut up.  
  
Hermione, as usual, had something to say on the subject. "The way we usually see Greek statues, all white and colourless, is actually just because the paint has been worn away. The statues were originally very brightly coloured, just like these. I told you this place was authentic, and I meant it." She then walked over to another door, which nobody had really noticed. In front of it was a ticket office, which bore a dirty, grime-covered sign reading 'Daedalus' Great Labyrinth. Children - two knuts. Adults – Four knuts'  
  
"Woah!" Exclaimed Ron. "Now THAT is cheap!"   
  
"Yeah, even you could afford that, Weasley. Or, maybe not." Draco laughed evilly at his rather pathetic joke. Ginny and Ron both walked towards him menacingly, and he decided it was probably not a good time to make Weasley jokes when there were two of them and one of him.  
"Okay, okay, I take it back." He said, rather unconvincingly.   
"Anyway, you have to remember that this place has been closed for around fifty years." Hermione reminded them. "There's been a lot of inflation since then, and wizards earned a lot less back then. In today's money it would probably be about…" she did some rough calculations in her head, "Eight sickles an adult and four point one three recurring sickles for a child." She looked around at the amazed faces.  
  
"Well," said Harry, breaking the silence, "what are we going to tie this magic ball of string to?"   
  
"How about the ticket booth?" Neville suggested timidly, and Ginny beamed at him.  
  
"Excellent idea!" Said Harry, as he tied the pearly string to a railing around the booth with a complicated knot. As soon as he dropped the ball of string onto the floor after tying the knot, it began to roll into the entrance to the maze, and they all followed it dutifully.  
  
What seemed like hours later, they were plodding along yet another corridor with walls covered in pictures of naked people fighting each other, when Harry, who was at the front of the group, let out a loud yell.  
  
"Stupid, bloody, crappy, string!" He was now jumping up and down on the end of the piece of string, and everyone could see that the ball had run out.  
  
"I suppose that's what you get when the Ministry cuts funding on saving the magical world quests, you get shoddy equipment to do it with." Ron reasoned, suddenly becoming wise in politics beyond his years. Or maybe it was just that his Dad worked at the Ministry and he had to listen to him complain about budget cuts every single night of the week (except Sundays, when talk was restricted to anything but politics).  
  
"Hey, where's Draco?" Hermione wondered out loud, but she quickly stopped wondering and concentrated on the matter at hand. "I guess we'll just have to follow it back out, and go to Dodgy Alley without the amulet. We can probably find a way to light a fire there without it." She sounded confident, but in the glowing light Harry could see she was looking worried.  
  
"Might work, Granger." Drawled Draco, appearing out of the shadows. "You could probably conjure up some of that bluebell-coloured waterproof fire in there, and we could just chuck the wand into it."  
Now it was Harry's turn to put in his two knuts. "I'm not sure, Malfoy. I mean, the council said that the only way to light a fire there was to get the amulet."  
  
"Nonsense Potter. The Ministry isn't always right, you know. They've been wrong lots of times, especially with that Cornelius Fudge in charge. They're all blinded like horses; they can only look straight ahead. They probably never thought of lighting a magical, waterproof fire in there. Plus, what other option is there?" Draco sneered at Harry, who stalked over to Draco in a challenging manner.  
  
"Listen, Malfoy. I think we should try to carry on. Even if we don't have the magical string, we can use the four-point spell, and probably another charm or two." Harry leant against the wall, frustrated with the cowardly attitudes of Malfoy and Hermione.  
  
"We're not in the Triwizard tournament now, Potter. No teachers running around the outside to save us, and no idea in which direction the middle is. Do you want to get us all killed?" Malfoy had his face almost up against Harry's now, but Harry wasn't concentrating on the grey eyes and white-blonde hair of Draco Malfoy at the moment. He had felt a shift in the wall he was leaning on.  
  
"Hey, I think I've found something." He said to the others. Harry pushed back on the wall, and a doorway appeared. Malfoy looked slightly astonished and – alarmed? But Harry brushed it off.  
  
Through the doorway was a small room leading to a passage, and there were signs all over the walls. Buckets, mops and brooms were stacked on shelves, and one sign read 'Maintenance Cupboard, southwest corner'. There was also a map of the Labyrinth, which seemed to have secret passages marked on it. A red dot labelled 'You are here' showed that they were inside a maintenance passage, which was connected to all the passages in the Labyrinth and to the centre.  
  
"This must be how the cleaners got through the maze. All we have to do is go up this passage and turn left, then open the secret maintenance door here," she pointed to a door marked on the map, "and we'll be in the centre. We can come back through this passage and it looks like there's another one of these little rooms right at the beginning of the maze." Hermione was busy taking charge, as usual.  
  
They plodded along the passageway, turned left, and found the hidden door. Of course, it wasn't hidden from this side, and clearly read 'Main Labyrinth Chamber', and had a door handle. They pulled it open, and walked into a spectacular round room, which was completely covered in a fresco of some naked guy killing what looked to be a half-man half-bull. In the middle of the chamber stood a pedestal, and on it was a glass case. Except the glass case was cracked, and a large hole was in one side. Inside there was nothing but shattered glass, and there was no trace of an amulet of any kind.  
  
"It's gone!" Screamed Hermione.  
  
- - - - - - - - -   
  
Author's note: Sorry about the shortness of the chapter/the fact that nothing really happens but I am going away on holiday tomorrow and wanted to post this for my friend before I go. Also, about the prices for the Labyrinth, I have no idea on the worth of the money so I just made up a price and I hope it's not too expensive/cheap. Also sorry about the constant changing from Draco to Malfoy and back again, it's just a habit.  
  
Thanks to my reviewers limo-baum, Lucy Malfoy and laceyq, your compliments mean a lot to me :D 


	4. Of poppies and dead bodies

When the initial shock of the missing amulet had worn off, everyone plonked down in a circle on the cold stone floor to deliberate what they were going to do next. Neville kept looking over his shoulder in a nervous fashion, and finally Hermione asked him what was wrong.  
  
"Oh, nothing really," he said, "just the fact that there should be a 'monster within' somewhere around here just waiting to be destroyed. Why hasn't it attacked us yet?" His round face shone with fear in the golden glow of the hovering spark cloud.  
  
"It was probably slain when the amulet was stolen. Either that or it died. I mean, this place hasn't been used for ages, it probably just got old and died." Draco said, clearly impatient. He had made his thoughts quite early on in the deliberations that they should just to go Dodgy Alley and try to light a fire without the Amulet.  
  
"Sorry to be a spanner in the works here, but usually magical monsters live for hundreds of years. They wouldn't exactly bother to guard the Amulet with something that would keel over dead in a few years time, and even then, wouldn't we see the carcass?" Harry said, his voice rising near the end from irritation from the calm Slytherin.  
  
"Look, I will say this again. Whatever was here isn't here anymore, so we should just go on and try and find another way. Come on, let's go." Draco stood up, and opened the door in the wall to the maintenance passage. One by one everyone nodded in agreement of this proposition, the floor was cold and wet and their robes were getting a little damp on the underside.   
  
Inside the passage, they again consulted a map, which now placed them outside the Main Labyrinth Chamber, and noted a path that would lead them right back to the Labyrinth entrance. As they emerged back into the round room with garish fountains and the dusty old ticket booth, everyone stretched their arms as though they had just been sleeping.  
  
"Ah, it's nice to be back somewhere you recognise," said Pansy, yawning, "even if that place is an old dusty room with an ugly fountain under a tacky hotel in the north of Scotland."  
  
"Mmm." Harry mumbled, shutting the door behind him. As the 'heroic' one, he had been voted the best person to keep up the rear, just in case the 'monster within' decided to attack them in a most un-friendly manner. But that was not what Harry was wondering about at that moment. He was staring at the door he had just closed.  
  
"Hermione. This is the door I was just about to look at earlier today, and you pulled me away. I would've found this passage before we'd even started, and we would've been in and out by the time you could say 'one two buckle my shoe'." Harry was a little bit annoyed that their journey could have been lessened considerably, but was too fond of his friend to get really angry.  
  
"The past is the past Harry, deal with it." Pansy said, as they filed out of the door and piled back onto the flying carpet.  
  
"Okay then, off to Land's End to see if we can destroy this stupid wand without the use of the amulet!" Hermione yelled as she levitated the carpet into the sky and began the trip south.  
  
"Hey, anyone want some yoghurt?" Neville asked as they were flying over Edinburgh – a bit off course but Hermione's navigation skills weren't quite perfect yet. He pulled a large tub of organic Greek-style yoghurt out of his robes. "It's hazelnut and honey flavour!"  
  
"Sure, I'll have some," Ron said, never the one to turn down free food.  
  
"Ron, what are you going to eat it with?" Asked Ginny, "Don't tell me you're going to try and drink it like you did last summer, and then you had to spend the whole day with it all down the front of your clothes." She edged away from him, scared of getting splashed with yoghurt in her brother's mad feeding frenzy.  
  
"No, of course not. I've got my handy dandy survival kit in here somewhere," Ron rummaged inside the seemingly bottomless pockets of his Hogwarts robes, "Aha, here we are. I just need to get the spoon out." Ron pulled a small, shiny silver spoon out from the wooden box, and Pansy immediately shrieked and shrunk back from Ron.  
  
"No not the spoons, the spoons, they haunt me, they haunts usss, precioussss!" Pansy was now crawling quickly across the carpet, as far away as she could get from Ron. But sadly, even that wasn't far enough to rid her of the spoon paranoia. With one swift movement, probably with the intention of getting even further from Ron, Pansy hurled herself backwards off the carpet, and everyone heard her scream a long, drawn out, "Noooooo!" as she fell from the flying floor covering.  
  
"Quick, after her!" Draco shouted, as he took over control of the carpet from Hermione. He immediately pulled the carpet into a speedy nose-dive, chasing Pansy to the ground. Unluckily, he wasn't quite fast enough, and Pansy Parkinson splatted on the ground just seconds before the carpet reached her dead and lifeless jelly-like body.  
  
"Quick, someone cast a spell on her to revive her, now!" Draco yelled, wringing his hands like a worried old lady and then running them through his perfectly groomed silver locks.  
  
"There's nothing we can do," Harry told him, standing up from where he was examining Pansy's body.  
  
"Of course there is!" Draco's voice raised an octave when he shouted at Harry, but Ron intervened.  
  
"Harry should know better than anyone that there's no spell to bring back the dead!"  
  
"Just because his parents died when he was young? Big deal. My cousin just died because she fell off a flying carpet, and two days ago I found out that my mother died when I was eight!" Draco sat down hard on Pansy's body, using the carcass like an old garden bench.  
  
"Didn't you kind of realise when you were eight that your mother was never around anymore? You hadn't seen her for, what, seven years, and you didn't realise she had died?" Ron said sarcastically.  
  
"My father killed her. He's a manipulative arse when he wants to be, and he managed to convince me that she was just away on a long holiday until…" Draco began to explain, but Ginny interrupted.  
  
"Wait a minute, Pansy's your cousin? You went to the Yule Ball with your cousin? Ewww!"   
  
"Yes, right," said Draco, "Anyway, he managed to convince me that she was away on holiday until he could get some random Death Eater to come in and drink a little polyjuice potion to pretend to be her when I came home. It wasn't too hard, since I've been in boarding school practically my whole life."  
  
"I still don't quite get this, you went with your COUSIN? How sick are you?" Ginny said, looking perplexed.  
  
"Shush Ginny, let him carry on. What the hell was that?!" Ron started to quiet Ginny, but two dead bodies suddenly fell out of the sky above them. Harry suddenly heard someone say "Oh crap!" and then poppies began to fall out of the sky, covering Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Draco, Harry, and the three dead bodies that lay around them.  
  
"Poppies, poppies will put them to sleep." He heard someone say from way up in the clouds, before everyone around him suddenly fell onto the ground in a deep sleep (that is, of course, the ones that were not already dead).   
  
"Who's there? Who are you?" He asked of the sky.  
  
"What? You can hear me? Damn stupid cable guy, I asked for a one way menacing voice-over package, not the interfering busybody two-way character chat. I'll be calling his supervisor!" Whoever it was seemed to forget about Harry for a minute, but then they remembered.  
  
"Ahem. Anyway, this has all been a big mistake. Um, you see, my garbage disposal was on the blink, so I decided to dispose of those bodies there in this clearing, I mean nobody ever actually goes here, usually."  
  
"Excuse me," interrupted Harry, "But why exactly were you dumping those bodies?"  
  
"I'm in the Wicked Witch business, dear, it's just what I do." The voice replied politely. "To cut to the chase, I'll revive your friends if you don't tell anyone what you saw today. I promise I won't dump any more here."   
  
"Well," said Harry, "You do drive a hard bargain, but I think I'll accept it. You also have to promise not to try and kill me in the future, ok?"   
  
There came a mumbled assent from the clouds, and then a giant pile of snow was dumped on top of the bodies in the clearing. Harry had to dig quickly to make sure that nobody died of hypothermia or something else nasty that you get from having a whole heap of snow dumped on top of you.  
  
"Wha, what's going on?" Ron mumbled as Harry pulled him from under one of the bodies. Hermione came out completely aware of her surroundings, and helped everyone onto the carpet straight away, before flying them high up above the clouds to get warm from the bright bright sun.  
  
"So, Harry, why didn't you fall asleep?" Draco asked sarcastically.  
  
"I dunno. I guess it was something to do with my mother dying to save me and all that. Either that or the fact that Voldemort transferred some of his powers into me when he tried to kill me. That stuff is always saving me, you know." Harry replied offhandedly, looking off into the distance over the fluffy white clouds.  
  
"Always the way," muttered Draco, as he tried to turn around gracefully and stare blankly into the sun. Instead, what happened was that the corner of the carpet that he was sitting on dipped down, and Draco slipped off the carpet. On his way down, he grabbed out for the nearest thing, which happened to be Hermione. So, in one more of a string of unlucky coincidences in the day, Draco and Hermione plunged from the carpet through the clouds.  
  
"Hermione!" Ginny yelled, and took over control of the carpet. She pulled it into a sharp dive, even sharper than Harry would have liked, but Ginny handled the carpet expertly. They managed to get close enough to the ground to see that Hermione and Draco were not going to splat on the ground like Pansy or Maria, but fall into a pond which looked deeper than deep. They hit the pond with a gigantic splash, but a few minutes later they bobbed back up, gasping with breath.  
  
While Hermione and Draco lay on the muddy side of the pond, gasping and gurgling, Ron instructed them to pull the carpet into a small grove of trees before they could go and help their companions.  
  
"What did we do that for?" Harry asked, "If anyone's watching, they just saw us fly down after two people fell from the sky, one more look at the carpet isn't really going to hurt."   
  
"Them." Ron just said, and pointed at a small platform about fifty metres away from the pond that Harry hadn't noticed before. On the platform stood a number of what were obviously witches and wizards, judging by their robes, holding old-fashioned cameras and wearing souvenir caps.  
  
"Why are they here? They look like tourists?" Harry was perplexed.  
  
"They're here to watch the festivities," Ron said dejectedly, "This is the Mysterious Pond of Love." He sat down on a rock, looking defeated.  
  
"The what? What festivities? Ron what the HELL is going on here?" Harry asked, looking at Ginny and Neville, who had been silent since they landed. They quickly looked away, avoiding his eyes.  
  
"The Mysterious Pond of Love only works for one week a year. Couples jump into the pond at the same time, and when they come out they are either madly in love or completely detest each other. It's sort of like a love test, only if you fail, your relationship is in the crapper. People come to watch couples either have massive fights, or to get warm fuzzies from the people who are meant to be together." Ron explained in a rush.  
  
"The tourists mean that this is the week the pond is working. What Ron hasn't explained is that most people don't bother going into the pond, because one way, it's going to ruin whatever you've got, and the other way, well, the love spell that the Pond casts is pretty potent." Ginny told Harry kindly.  
  
"So what's the big problem?" Harry asked.  
  
"Well, Hermione and Draco jumped in together. That might pose a problem." Neville interjected.  
  
"They didn't jump, they fell." Harry told them.  
  
"Whatever Harry, the Pond doesn't know the difference." Ginny looked at him sternly, telling him not to play semantics with her.  
  
"But so what, Hermione and Malfoy aren't meant to be together. I know it'll probably be hard with them sniping all the time, but I also think Hermione can't hate him any more than she does now." Harry told them. Why were they all being so down about this? It wasn't really a problem.  
  
"Umm, Harry, you might want to take a look." Neville said nervously. Harry looked over at the pond, and what he saw almost made him die of shock.  
  
"Hermione!" He yelled, storming over to the muddy bank. Draco was busy pushing back a lock of Hermione's hair, and Hermione was giggling. "Get your hands off her Malfoy!" Harry shouted, pushing Draco's hand away.  
  
"Don't worry Harry, I won't hurt her. I love her." Draco told him honestly, as he stared into Hermione's eyes. Harry stormed back over to Ron, Neville and Ginny in a mad fit of rage.  
  
"What the hell is going on here?" Harry asked nobody in particular.  
  
"They're in love Harry, deal with it," Ginny said, "I think it kinda looks pretty cool. Neville, you wanna…?" Ginny looked at Neville inquiringly. Obviously she had gone to the Yule Ball with him out of more than just pity. But Neville's eye had already been caught by.. Ron.  
  
"Ron? What are you thinking?" Harry almost laughed at Ron, as Ron began to lead the unknowing Neville towards the pond.   
  
"Come on Harry," Ron said, "You can't honestly tell me that you've lived with four guys for four years and you were never the least bit curious?"   
  
"Yes, I can." Harry said, stoney-faced. 


End file.
